Hot air: TV better with Tim Tebow

Broncos-Steelers rating crushes other wild-card matchups

For the moment, television executives are genuflecting at the altar of Tim Tebow, who wears his religious beliefs on game days and whose nonconventional quarterbacking skills help make him the ultimate underdog.

It’s proved to be a winning combination.

Credit for the boffo rating earned by the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers for Sunday’s overtime AFC wild-card game is being laid exclusively at Tebow’s feet. You may have heard that it was Tebow’s 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime that gave underdog Denver a 29-23 victory and the right to visit the New England Patriots on Saturday.

The name of the Broncos receiver who caught the pass and ran away from defenders? Does it matter?

Broncos-Steelers was the highest rated wild-card game in 18 years. It was the most-watched in 24 seasons.

More numbers: The game earned a 23.6 rating and served 42.4 million viewers. Closest of the other three wild cards: Saturday night’s New Orleans-Detroit at 18.2 and 31.8 million. Secretariat’s 31-length Triple Crown-clinching win at Belmont Stakes might have been more competitive

That caused Sean McManus, the boss of sports at CBS, the network which broadcast the wild-card game and has Saturday’s matchup in glorious prime time, to say the “phenomenon of Tim Tebow … is something that I haven’t seen in a long time.”

There’s no telling how many more people would have tuned in initially had the Broncos not ridden into the game on a three-game losing streak. Worse, the last two losses were to last-place division teams — Buffalo and Kansas City.

That third loss was to the Patriots, a 41-23 mugging on Denver’s home field.

Still, Broncos-Steelers opened with a 20.4 rating in the first 30 minutes of the game. With the Broncos surprisingly leading 20-6 at halftime, the rating jumped to 24.6. By the end of regulation it spiked to 29.8. The overtime scored a 31.6. Translation: The bandwagon grew and grew and grew some more. Experts say nontraditional NFL viewers stopped by and stayed. In droves.

With the always TV-friendly Patriots as Saturday’s opponent, speculation is rampant that a Tom Brady-Tim Tebow quarterback showdown could blow away several postseason ratings records. Even if the prime-time game is being played on a Saturday night, traditionally the least-watched TV night of the week, the speculation may be right.

While Brady brings his stellar résumé highlighted by his surgeon-like precision passing skills, Tebow, the second year quarterback who began the season on the bench and painted by some as nothing more than a religious zealot with a weak arm, is the perfect foil.

Of course it won’t hurt if the Broncos can stay competitive early. A Denver lead would be manna from heaven. Bad weather around the country, encouraging people to plant themselves in their living rooms, would be the cherry on the apple pie.

“I can’t recall anything like this,” said Goren, the Fox executive who has been in the NFL business since 1975 when he was at CBS. “It’s a movie script.”

Some might recall that once upon a time, NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies was a ratings hit. Maybe CBS will be similarly blessed.

CBS crew to focus on game, not Tebow’s beliefs

Surest bet in America is that the Broncos, who didn’t get a single Sunday Night Football invite in 2011, will get the NBC treatment next season.

Expect CBS’ Jim Nantz and Phil Simms to not go in depth on the subject of Tebow’s religious beliefs, even if the network cameras focus on him with his head bowed in apparent prayer or catch him looking to the heavens and pointing. They didn’t do it last week, either.

Fox’s Goren on Tebow and religion in the game broadcast: “I don’t think that’s the forum. People tune in to see the game. A lot of these subjects that come up are better served in a pre-game format… It’s a Bernie Goldberg piece for [HBO] Real Sports.”

And finally Fox’s Troy Aikman, who won’t call a Tebow game this postseason: “I’m there to call a football game. I wouldn’t go in that direction.”

Wild about the NFL

NFL national ratings for wild-card weekend dwarfed NBA Finals and World Series numbers.

The Mavericks’ six-game series victory over the Miami Heat averaged a 10.2 rating. The St. Louis Cardinals’ seven-game series victory over the Rangers averaged a 10.0.

The four first-round wild-card games averaged an 18.3 nationally. The Dallas-Fort Worth average was ahead of the curve at 19.2.

Here’s last weekend’s wild-card breakdown:

Game

Network

National

rating

National

viewership

DFW

rating

Houston 31, Cincinnati 10

NBC

13.5

21.9 million

15.5

New Orleans 45, Detroit 28

NBC

18.2

31.8 million

21.3

New York Giants 24, Atlanta 2

Fox

17.3

27.7 million

19.3

Denver 29, Pittsburgh 23 (OT)

CBS

24.0

42.4 million

23.6

Bowled over

It was a most excellent bowl season on the field for teams of local interest. Here’s a look at how they fared in the ratings. Keep in mind not all the games, which were on one of the ESPN family of networks, have equal status. And, of course, time of day affects the ratings.

Bowl

Result

Start time

DFW rating

Fiesta

OSU 41, Stanford 38

7:30 p.m.

10.6

Alamo

Baylor 67, Washington 56

8 p.m.

7.1

Holiday

Texas 21, Cal 10

7 p.m.

5.5

Poinsettia

TCU 31, Louisiana Tech 24

7 p.m.

4.7

Meineke

Texas A&M 33, Northwestern 22

11 a.m.

4.2

Insight

Oklahoma 31, Iowa 14

9 p.m.

3.8

BBVA Compass

SMU 28, Pitt 6

noon

2.5

Around the Horn

Eric Nadel won his third consecutive Texas “sportscaster of the year” award from the North Carolina-based National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. The radio voice of the Rangers has won the award seven times. The Cowboys’ Brad Sham has won 10 times. Both have a ways to go to catch Vin Scully, who won the California award for the 31st time. ESPN’s Dan Shulman won the national award. All NSSA dues-paying members are eligible to vote and win. … With bowl ratings on a downward spiral, including a 15 percent drop this year, and with the BCS Orange Bowl (4.5), Sugar Bowl (6.1) and Fiesta Bowl (8.4) mired in single-digit ratings behind the relatively lackluster Rose Bowl (10.2), some sort of playoff looms on the television horizon. Expect four teams in the first playoff. … Norm Hitzges’ 12 1/2-hour day-after-Christmas benefit for the Austin Street Center for the Homeless raised a record $207,000. The 11th such “Norm-a-thon” on The Ticket topped the previous best of $192,000 raised last year. “The generosity of people continues to astound me,” Hitzges said. … Mavericks ratings on Fox Sports Southwest are 29 percent ahead of last season’s pace. The Mavericks are averaging a 2.6. The season high of 4.1 — better than any regular-season game last season — came Jan. 4 against Phoenix. … Any day now ESPN will announce the Chicago White Sox-Rangers game on April 8 has been selected as its Sunday Night Baseball season opener.

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About Barry Horn

Barry Horn has covered sports media for the last two decades. He was born in The Bronx, went to college at NYU, graduate school at Northwestern and worked at the Miami Herald immediately before joining SportsDay in 1981.

He once worked at the now defunct Hollywood Sun-Tattler, which despite its name was not a supermarket tabloid. His work as a feature writer, his other hat here, has earned him national, state and local awards, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination and an unequalled five state-wide Fred Hartman Awards for "excellence in sportswriting."

His wife runs a dental practice in Plano. His two sons attended the University of Texas and Texas A&M, and his daughter attends Trinity University in San Antonio.